00:00:01 John Daub: Greetings everybody. Welcome to the city of Tokyo. This is Asakusa, and that is the Sumida River. I wanted to bring you here today on a weekday before the weekend when there's going to be a crazy amount of people here, so you can get a look at what the cherry blossoms are like in the city of Tokyo. Up there is the Tokyo Skytree. We're pretty close, just across the river from it. And this walkway here is quite a famous place to come for the cherry blossoms. That's the Tobu Line. We'll see the train going by there in a couple of minutes. A lot of tour boats are coming through here.

00:00:41 John Daub: Japan, Tokyo ended the state of emergency about two, three days ago, and life is sort of back to normal here, although with masks and precautions. Let's get going. As you can see, the blossoms are in full bloom, if not just a little bit past it. Let's look at this one right here and I'll show you a really pretty photo. Hey everybody. Right here you get a nice shot looking from the cherry blossoms over to the Skytree. It's a nice place to come when it's not crowded.

00:01:19 John Daub: I wanted to come this morning, but I didn't wake up. I'm dreaming. Dream big. You can see through here, you have those beautiful shots. I hope this is coming to you in glorious 720p, because that's what a mobile live stream gives. Pretty, huh? You can see some of them right here. The green leaves are starting to pop up and that means the end of the blossoms is almost here. And I wanted to come out here just to enjoy it. I've been inside trying to raise a kid. It's nice to finally get out here. Newborns keep you inside. Parents are shaking their heads. Yeah, we know.

00:02:01 John Daub: Nice view. Let's see if I can find another one. It helps to have a zoom lens and I believe HDR is activated, so the color should be nice and vibrant despite the fact that the clouds have rolled over. I think I rolled in here to the city of Tokyo. It's pretty. Tokyo! It's about 20 degrees Celsius right now. The clouds did roll in. It was warmer when the sun was out, but I'm not going to complain. I got shorts on.

00:02:38 John Daub: What we're going to do today in this live stream is I'm going to take you from this spot here, which is sort of the center of the park. We're going to walk around this area, across the bridge to the other side. There's some sakura over there that we can enjoy, and then we're going to walk back around here. If we're lucky we'll get a chance to see where Space Boat is docked. That'd be really exciting for me. Now there are no foreign tourists allowed here in Japan, so those that you see are residents that are living here that are deciding that they would want to dress up in yukata (light summer kimono). Walk around. It's really nice. Kind of adds the flair that yes, this is Japan, beyond just the cherry blossoms. Even the pigeons are here to enjoy the beauties of spring.

00:03:31 John Daub: Hanami (cherry blossom viewing). You can't add blue. You can't put blue sheets here. I think the ones over there for people that are homeless, I'm not sure. But you're not allowed to have blue sheets here, so I'm sure the police are going to come. Pigeon platoon just came through here. So you can't have blue sheets and do what we call traditionally hanami, which is sit underneath the cherry blossoms and enjoy it with joy and enjoy the drinks. They want you to keep moving.

00:04:21 John Daub: A little bit of local flair. These are yukata, summer kimono. But the weather is so warm, I don't blame them for coming out and trying to get some really beautiful pictures. The weather is just perfect for it. Get some beautiful pictures with the cherry blossoms. Oh here comes the train. Here comes the Tobu Line. This is awesome. Wait for it. Yeah. It's a beautiful scene. I love it with trains rolling through the cherry blossoms. What could be more Japan? Trains, cherry blossoms, Asahi Super Dry.

00:05:07 John Daub: Over here you can see there's a shortcut to get from Sensoji Temple to the park. Just cut through there underneath the station, and even the blossoms over there are really nice. Beautiful afternoon. I just wish I'd gotten out here two hours earlier. So did the people on the east coast of the US who are asleep now. It's like 2 in the morning. Look at them just enjoying the view. Look you two. I know you're on a date. Just kiss already. Come on. Nothing's going to happen if you stand that far apart. Don't let the Skytree get between you. Just do it. Will he make a move? I think they're both guys. All right, let's keep moving. Cherry blossoms bring the best out of all of us.

00:06:29 John Daub: It is nice to see the pigeons just kind of chilling out there. Let's get a move on. We're going to wrap around here. There's a pedestrian bridge just over there. We're going to take that way around, then we can look back across the river at where we are right now. This live stream will probably go on for about 30 minutes. It's a beautiful area. They've renovated this a lot too. There's a couple of cafes along the riverbanks. It goes on for quite a while.

00:07:18 John Daub: When I go running here in the city of Tokyo, you can run around the Imperial Palace where the emperor lives. It's a five-kilometer loop. I like to run along the Sumida River. It's about a 10, 15. Actually, it keeps going on. I haven't found the end of it yet. It's quite a really good run, but I haven't been running because of the pandemic and family. My knees hurt. I got to get back into shape. Whoa, I got to walk that whole thing to get up there? There's got to be a shortcut. That's interesting. Smoking room.

00:08:00 John Daub: Before the Olympics, Tokyo is doing all the little tweaks necessary to make sure that everybody's happy. Oh, that's a different variety of cherry blossom. Let's go check it out. They just finished baseball practice. Interesting. I don't know this variety, but it is really pretty. Take that. That's an eiffel [?]. Nice. Love the color. This is a different variety, beautiful pink here. Then the obligatory enter the blossom shot to make you feel uncomfortable. This one's just coming out. That's what it looks like when they pickle the blossoms. They kind of put it in a salty solution, and then they use that for confections. It's nice.

00:09:36 John Daub: All right, let's get moving. We're going to go into a slightly more crowded than usual area, so I'm going to put on a second mask because it's a good idea. Double the fun. The Yamanoshuku no Watashi ferry. In the days when ferries crossed the Sumida River, there was a ferry called the Yamanoshuku no Watashi. The word watashi means ferry. In a map printed in 1907. So there's some history for you to screenshot if you want to read the rest. They do keep the rocks. This is where the entrance was, so it is sort of a historical point. You'll find that all over the city of Tokyo, these historical references, and it's easy to walk right by them and not give them due credit.

00:10:52 John Daub: So this walkway underneath the tracks of the Tobu Line is a way for you to cross the river. There's loads of bridges across the Sumida River. This is just one of them, but this one is pedestrian only. And you can see on the other side near the Tokyo Skytree, we do have another line of cherry blossoms. Just beautiful. Watch your step. The mark on the bottom right of the sign is the symbol for the city of Tokyo. For those that don't know, you'll find it on the Tokyo Metro, too. The Toei Line. That's right.

00:11:52 John Daub: I'll try and social distance. Is that a man purse or a bag? I can never figure it out. It's a man purse. Over there, you can see there's some beautiful cherry blossoms, blossoms and a Tully's Coffee and a couple other little cafes there. Another one right next to the Tully's that makes this park pretty nice. And if you're visiting Asakusa, this is a place to get a bento and kind of escape the tourist hordes. It's a local thing to do, come to the river. All right, underneath the tracks we go to the other side. Follow those dogs. Whoa, so this is where we just came from. So we were walking, I started the live stream right there. Now you're starting to see it come into view. We'll be on the other side in a second. It's baseball piers right over there. We'll be there in like 10 minutes.

00:13:39 John Daub: Onwards. Hey, I see Brandani is here. I'd say one out of a hundred people aren't wearing masks. She's a little worrying. You can see. All right, we're right in the center of the Sumida River now. It's a nice view. I don't see Space Boat. Hey, what's going on? I guess we'll see it coming in and dock, but it doesn't come in and out of the way. It's a nice view. It's nice to hear the rumble of the trains right above us and the whole platform is shaking by the way. Whoa, anti-pigeon spikes. It's not nice. Okay, we're now getting close to the other side.

00:16:03 John Daub: We're gonna walk now along another path. I didn't use the external mics because believe it or not the wind, which is unusual for spring, is very low. Not a lot of wind. It feels like a public holiday but just wait until tomorrow. I'm avoiding this area tomorrow, it's going to be really crowded. All right, now we're on the other side. I believe that this is the river separates Sumida Ward with Taito Ward. Taito-ku is where Asakusa is, so this is the Skytree which is in Sumida Ward. The two wards are very much part of Tokyo's 23 wards. Oh, the wind is picking up now. I guess the rain really is coming in. Bad sign for this live stream, bad sign for me. I live like 30 minute bike ride from here. Check it out, there's another park across the street. Oh look at that, it's a petal flurry. Do you see it? Petal flurries. I'll catch it. Somebody open their mouth.

00:18:47 John Daub: All right, let's get back to the riverside. All right, back up to the Sumida River we go. When I got here there's no wind at all. It's amazing how the weather changes really quickly in the spring. Wow, so this is right, there's the, there's some trucks up there. This is the highway that goes around Tokyo and we have the cherry blossom tunnel. These are older cherry blossom trees, more mature, really pretty.

00:19:56 John Daub: Sun novel writes in, why do you like Japan so much? Answer: it's my home, I live here therefore I like it. Why do you like it? All right, it's getting a little blurry so we're gonna have to go through this area pretty quick. Hopefully the signal will get a little bit better. So we started over here on the other side, we've walked around, now we're gonna walk back around. The signal will get better if you're watching this in playback, just forward through it. We'll get a better signal. It could be blocked from a lot of people and we're right underneath the highway that doesn't help, but the HDR looks really good. We do have 5G probably more than any other country right now and more than any other city. Tokyo is decked out in 5G but the plans for it are in its infancy so 5G is not really, not really, they're everywhere but they're not engaged yet. It's weird, it's disappointing actually. I thought that we'd be a lot further along in the technology, I thought that would be a lot further along in its usability too for like mobile live streaming but I'm not going to complain about it.

00:21:23 John Daub: Wind. There's the walkway that we just came across. This bridge is quite famous. I know a lot of you have come along this way. I'm not sure if a lot of you knew about that walkway. So let me get up here. It does feel like it's going to rain but I love this building. This is the Asahi building. You can see it's reflecting the sky in gold. It's full of love. Fortunately he didn't make it through the movie. All right, this is on the side of the A6 Cafe so you can even get a Corona beer. It's interesting. I'm gonna have to pass on that.

00:22:33 John Daub: I do apologize about the wind. I should have miked up. Stand still, stand still. I'm trying to photograph you. You really need a fast shutter speed, pictures of cherry blossoms when the wind is out. Who wanted to super chat? Apparently that is off thanks to the YouTube app defaults. I don't know, it's weird. Every time I start a live stream and I edit anything it resorts back to 1970 January 1st and deletes all the things that were activated. It's a bug that's been bugging me for a couple of months now and YouTube doesn't do anything about it. Come on YouTube, get on it.

00:24:02 John Daub: Yeah, I got a message from somebody on Instagram. Follow that man, actually don't follow that man. We're going over the bridge again. Oh man, ow, look at this wind. It's a swirling cherry blossom petals with leaves. It's like spring and autumn have collided. It's like a scene from American Beauty. Kevin Spacey, where are you? Sakura nado. Yeah. All right folks, now we're crossing back over the bridge. Totally unnecessary. Giddy up. You can see across the river the Tobu Line is once again taking off.

00:25:41 John Daub: KS thanks Carlos. A man is in the house demanding more. There's an escape room not far from where you are. Really? There are lots of secrets to this area of the city of Tokyo, lots of secrets over the course of many many years. I will divulge them to you. See, I do have a microphone that I use that works quite well for wind but not engaged now. It's hard to activate. It makes people upset. Traveling toes 11 warm up later with a tea. New Papa. It looks like it's closed or something. This is the Space Boat pier. This is a home of Space Boat and it's virtually deserted.

00:26:50 John Daub: Mr. Faithful, I'm here for you. I will help you until you can come yourself. Join a boat trip. On top there. I'm gonna wrap around. On Saturday I'm gonna do the final unboxing. I have more boxes now than I did the first two so thank you to everybody who helped out and bought stuff for little Leo in the registry. We got some really nice things that we're going to be using for several years and that I might be using for many many years for myself like the rattle. It's kind of cool. All right, this is the scene. Oh this is where I said goodbye to my friends Dan and Lincoln when they were here, right there. I hope they can make it back here. Check it out, this has lots of buildings in the Skytree in it. Beautiful scene, no wind, HDR. What could be better? Oh no, Space Boat, is it running today? Let's see the schedule.

00:28:30 John Daub: Yeah it is running. What's up with that? Oh they're different boats. What about the Space Boat? The Emeraldus is 55 minutes and they leave. Oh there's very few of them today. The Hotaluna is quite famous. There's three Hotalunas going too. They kind of raised the price. I guess it's okay because we want to stay in business, right? And there's one that goes to Toyosu, the Himiko. So there are three of them: Himiko and Emeraldus and then soon to be a Leo. That'd be pretty cool if they name one Leo. Simple three letters. If you get rid of the kill and put an M it would be Tom Cruise. Pretty cool. Thumb cruise.

00:30:07 John Daub: All right, let's get back around. Let's move around here. Actually you know what, I can go along the riverside. We can go along the riverside here and if we get a bunch of likes maybe I'll go to Asakusa Shrine, Sensoji. Well we need to get to like a thousand likes for me to do that. I don't think it's gonna happen. I think everyone's asleep. It's okay. Hanging out. This is where you get onto the Space Boat. I guess this is. Oh there it is. No way. Oh look at the timing. Look, look at her, she's turning. I've never seen the Space Boat turn like this before. I'll do it. Gun it. Which one is it, the Hotaluna? Gun it. Submerge. Inbound, inbound.

00:31:29 John Daub: Last time I rode it was, it's been a while. Just jump on it. I want to learn how. Wonder there's some secret buttons or I think does he have more control than we think he has here. Lots of questions. It's cool. Apparently there's a zipper boat that goes along the Sumida River as well. Well if we get to a thousand likes I will go to Asakusa Shrine. Get the microphone on and keep the wind down. Docking. Yo, there's the captain. Ahoy, don't throw the rope to me. I guess he could do it himself. Whoa, the boat kind of body checked this whole pier. Hawksun [?]. Welcome to traveler.

00:32:48 John Daub: It's beautiful. There really aren't a lot of people. Usually there's about five times that amount. The line usually goes up. I'm very tempted to get on there. An aerial view of a Space Boat in the cherry blossoms. I could totally defeat her. Don't even try. Whoa, it's totally drifting. Space Boat trip. It's Tokyo trip. Check it out, Tokyo Drift right there. Do it. Gun it. Yeah look at that, it's burning rubber. It's rare to see two of them. It's like some sort of convention or something. Two Space Boats colliding docking with one another for the greater good of the world and the universe. Look at this, they're not going to Mars. Sort of like Mars.

00:35:00 John Daub: All right you know what I gotta get out of the wind so I'm gonna jump over here. Pretty awesome. I haven't, I've never seen a Space Boat drift. Well I just saw somebody with an Ohio State shirt. Go back. Let's go back to where we started. There's the highway that we came, there's the highway that we were under. This is that's where the signal went really bad over there. So for those other streamers, don't stream there. Are they here for the what are they here for? There's photographers. Are they here for Space Boat? The cameras are pointed in the wrong direction. Something. Oh they're train otaku (train geeks). They're filming the train and the crossing with the cherry blossoms or the zipper boat maybe. Yeah it could be the zipper boat.

00:36:37 John Daub: That is actually that's the wedding. That's the kimono for a wedding so that's a real kimono that she's wearing and I was wearing that kimono as well when I got married. Beautiful. That's a Tobu Line, T-O-B-U. I believe it runs to Narita Airport. Oh no that's this Espacia [?]. Hakama indeed. It's a lovely kimono. Let's go. Let's get to, we can see something from the tree. We can get the Skytree through the cherry blossoms right here. It's another pretty view and glorious HDR. The train is that slow because it's coming into the station. I wonder what it would look like coming in at full speed into the station. That would be a newsworthy story.

00:37:51 John Daub: Oh this is where we started the live stream. Any advice for visiting Asakusa? No comment. All right this is where I took, I started the live stream and there's a nice one between the tree there. Yeah between the tree here was it the other tree? They don't know what they're doing either. Everyone's trying to look for that angle. She's a quick shooter you can tell. The different photographers, some photographers like a couple of minutes trying to get the right angle and then there's others that shoot from the hip, click and go. It's not too crowded here along the riverside. It's nice. It's nice that we could spend a little bit of time together outside. I'm getting a little vitamin D. Yeah I gotta get an orange juice. Here's the one tree that's quite famous. You can get some nice blossoms through here with the Skytree. Oh the sun is coming out. Lovely.

00:39:43 John Daub: See the cherry blossoms. Right, that's right. You realize flowers out of these trees produce. You're so zoomed in on the trees privates. I am, I totally am. You can see things that you shouldn't be seeing at all. So you could tell I'm the type that will stand here for minutes and enjoy the view. So you're watching live from Tokyo of the Skytree with blossoms all around it. No the blossoms will not collide with the Skytree. It's quite a bit different than the Skytree, it's a little ways away. Looks like it could. Godzilla blossoms. Different world.

00:41:03 John Daub: Constantine be nice to Leo and have a great day. You got it. So when you come try to get that shot. Any questions? I want to go to Japan please. It'd be good to see you Carlos. It would be good to see my friend Carlos. There's a link in the description for a Google map where you can go and click and figure it out where we just walked. I believe that the link will take you to the bridge. So I'm gonna walk just around the intersection here and then head home. Job well done. There's my bike right there. It's illegally parked. Totally illegally parked but oh they're racing. Go go go race race. Oh totally lost. Sometimes going fast is not the best way. I tell people sometimes the shinkansen is just too fast. Sometimes you want to enjoy the train ride. That's why the local trains are really nice.

00:42:19 John Daub: Oh I smell curry. Curry rice. Where's her head? Hello Brenda. Oh you said hey to Johnny not to John. Thanks a lot Brenda. I'm not. Oh that's why it smells like curry. Oh lovely. I'm panning around here just showing you the historical Asakusa Station and I'm going to take it to the front here and then it'll be as though you are here too because you can't be. Crystal Frost right in here. Hi John, the sakura are so beautiful. Tell Leo can I hi please. I'm gonna go see them in a couple of hours at the maternity home. There Kanae is getting massages and being pampered which is great because after you have a newborn it can get really tough and because the city is subsidizing it so much. Oh it's not free but it's so cheap that you have to take advantage of it.

00:43:46 John Daub: And because of the pandemic baby boom that we've had here—it's not a big boom but it is a little bit of a boom—we had to wait a few days before she could check into the maternity home which is great because then we could try to be parents to a newborn and anything that was questions that we had. Now she can ask the midwives and the professionals. It's really great. She's getting massages in the morning, it's helping with her breastfeeding and everything. It's really amazing and I'm so happy that the city of Chuo-ku, the ward that we live in, has subsidized it by like 80, 85%. So it's good. So she's in a really nice place but I'll be happy when they get home.

00:44:44 John Daub: On Powell for Leo to start his savings. Best wishes to a new addition to your family. Thank you Francis. Oh yeah that's the bakery truck. They play around my neighborhood too. What's the song? Den dah den. It's like old beer commercial I guess. They have a contract or something. A lot of you have not been to Tokyo in a while so it's nice to see Asakusa Station once again. There are other live streamers too. Dude, I'm sure you've gotten a chance to see them too. The cops busted them down. Why would you cross on a red light and right in front of the police? Kinda weird. Oh, yakiniku! Yes please! Do it! Yeah!

00:45:57 John Daub: It's slightly crowded, but it's a weekday. Tomorrow it's gonna be really crowded and I don't want to be outside around the city tomorrow, but today is okay. You can see though that the state of emergency lifted a couple of days ago. Sorry, about five days ago now. See, the end of the week, it's Friday. 99 out of 100 people have masks on. I didn't count, but I'm pretty sure. So I'm just gonna take you around the intersection and then we're gonna end the livestream. It's kinda nice to take a look around the area. In fact, you know what, I could go to... If we can get to 500 likes in the next 15 seconds, I will take you to Kaminarimon, or the front of the shrine. It's up to you. I gotta get to 500 likes. I call it. There you go. I'll take... I'll extend this for 500 likes. That's all I ask. Small price to pay. And there we go. See, that's pretty easy. I should've aimed higher.

00:47:26 John Daub: Alright, let's walk now through here to Kaminarimon and then we're gonna... I'm really surprised and somewhat happy too that businesses are going and perhaps they're gonna make it through. I'm just really worried about the pandemic and as long as everybody is taking precautions, perhaps this'll be okay. Hello! That's the rickshaw guys. So they have a pretty good tour here. You can see there's some of the prices. It's one per... It's a little bit more for two people, but you can see there's a nice map here. It does look like a fun thing to do. And I've done it a couple of times. Once for NHK. The cost was a little bit higher than what they promised. It's a little better than what I would've booked. This is another one where I was with a friend of mine, Andrew Fortwain [?].

00:48:49 John Daub: Congratulations to the addition to your family. It's gotten bigger by 30 percent. Congratulations to the addition. It's amazing joy to watch Mini Me grow. He's grown already. You know, Leo's grown a lot in 10 days. And pretty funny when they have similar personalities. Really? I certainly hope that he doesn't copy me. He's gonna have to do his own thing. He can copy me. I'm still kind of overwhelmed that I'm a father. Wow, look at this gachapon! That's pretty awesome. It's like a jinrikisha (human-powered rickshaw). It's a human rickshaw gachapon for 400 yen. This one has some of the Kaminarimon. There's some really interesting gachapon here. The problem is, what am I gonna do with it? On the registry, we got Nekobasu and Totoro. But we didn't get Mei-chan. Maybe I should add Mei-chan to the baby registry. Then we'd have all three of them. Who doesn't love Totoro? So I gotta make sure that the baby is not just an Ohio State Buckeye, but also a Totoro fan.

00:50:35 John Daub: Alright, I deliver on my promises. You can come here to take a selfie. Ayo! It is a little crowded here. But you know what? It's not even close to what it usually is. Usually, you can't even move. You can see the market looks... We can go a little bit in. This is not crowded at all. For this area, this is not crowded at all. This is so tame. You are now looking at a live view of Nakamise-dori (shopping street), the walkway to Sensoji Temple. Smells like street food. No! They did not put a Starbucks there! Awful! Really? They did not need more. That's pretty cool. They didn't need a Starbucks there, really. It's all good. And this is the Kengo Kuma building here. It's still here across the street. It's beautiful. Nice view from up there looking down. And for those who come here with the drone, do not fly your drone here. If you want an aerial shot, just go up there. I think there's a live camera too. So maybe you can see me on the live camera. I'm waving. Does anyone see me? I'm going to stand here until somebody can confirm that I'm in the picture. Hello, live camera. Nobody? Okay. Just going to keep walking. I'm going to walk out to the middle of the street and now wave my hands. Now it's easy to see me. Hello, I'm on the wave camera. I'm leaving because police are looking at me. I'm pigeon walking across the street. Nobody. No, Noella saw me. Good.

00:53:57 John Daub: I'm really happy. I got to see the cherry blossoms and you got to walk around a little bit in the wind that was not here when we started. I apologize for the wind noises. But just for 54 minutes, which is 30 minutes in my book, we get a chance to hang out in Tokyo. And that's a good thing. Tomorrow, I'll be unboxing all the boxes in my apartment. I put some pictures on the Discord server. If you're not a member of Discord, go check it out. Oh my gosh, I can't even get into my apartment. There's so many boxes. It's going to take a while for me to unbox them all. But Kanae's in the maternity home. So I'm going to see if she can call in via like video chat or something. And then we'll see her on the TV and then we can unbox them digitally, which should be pretty cool. But this will be the last unboxing because a trilogy is more than enough.

00:55:04 John Daub: I don't think majority of people are like, you know, I want to see Japan. A lot of people have spent their time in that Burger King, I'm sure. So there you have it. The cherry blossoms are beautiful this time of year. This is one of the big spots in the city of Tokyo. But I have to be honest with you, Tokyo is not the best place for the cherry blossoms. If you're coming here for cherry blossom viewing to Japan, I highly recommend getting up to Aomori to Hirosaki, which is around the 18th to 25th of April. Or going down to some of the other places. You want to go out to the countryside, to nature. Tokyo is nice for drinking and stuff, but for natural things like cherry blossoms, I don't know. It's alright. There's better places though. And I hope over the years, I'll be able to take you to them and better see the awesome views of Mount Fuji with the cherry blossoms along the way. So there you have it from Asakusa. Thank you so much everybody for watching. I'll be back with another unboxing tomorrow.